Month: February 2018

I signed up for Brenda Gael Smith’s Monthly Art Project on Facebook, combining it with Sharon Boggon’s Beyond TAST, and Stitch a Day. I tend to pick boring, safe colour schemes for my work, so I decided to use the 12 months of the project to be more adventurous.

Brenda encouraged us to write SMART targets for the project, which is something I haven’t done since I retired, so I had to refresh my memory of what was involved. This is what I came up with.

In each month I will add a section to my band sampler exploring one of the primary, secondary or tertiary colours in the 12 section colour wheel.

Each week’s section will involve one of the following colour schemes (not necessarily in this order):

Monochrome

Complementary

Analogous

Split complementary.

In longer months I will add a section using that month’s main colour plus black and white.

I will make my choice of stitches experimental as well. Mistakes provide learning experiences and should not always be unpicked. Experimentation is more important than perfection.

I will use fabric and threads from my stash. I will not buy any new supplies during the year.

The image is of my progress so far. January’s colour was red-purple, this month’s is red. One thing I’ve learned is that there are a lot of variations on those colours, and telling them apart with ageing eyes in winter light is not easy. But like the targets say, mistakes provide learning experiences. I’m keeping an embroidery notebook and adding comments on what worked and what didn’t. So far I’ve been agreeably surprised by some of the combinations, although I’m still a bit challenge£ by red and green.